Decreasing trend in global land monsoon precipitation over the past 50 years simulated by a coupled climate model

Abstract

The authors examine the effects of external forcing agents such as greenhouse gases (GHGs) and aerosols, as well as solar variability and ozone, on global land monsoon precipitation by using a coupled climate model HadGEM1, which was developed by the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Research. The results indicate that HadGEM1 performs well in simulating the observed decreasing trend of global land monsoon precipitation over the past 50 years. This trend mainly occurred in the Northern Hemisphere and is significantly different from the trend of natural variability due to ocean-atmosphere-land interactions. The coherence between the simulation and the observations indicates that the specified external forcing agents, including GHGs and aerosols as well as solar variability and ozone, are important factors that have affected the decreasing trend of global land monsoon precipitation in the past 50 years.